Apple’s late founder Steve Jobs once said he believed that technology, on its own, is not enough: “It’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields the results that make our hearts sing,” he explained.

Richard Neal ’15 is a great example of what Jobs meant, and what Wheaton’s curriculum encourages. He is double majoring in computer science and mathematics and also earning a minor in secondary education. Neal is deeply involved in some of the college’s most innovative initiatives, while also serving as a teaching assistant and a tutor. On top of all that, he plans to graduate in just three years.

Neal, who grew up in a suburb outside Boston, said that technology has always been a major part of his life, but he didn’t arrive at Wheaton planning to major in computer science. However, he was drawn in by a few introductory classes and encouragement from two professors of computer science, Mark LeBlanc and Tom Armstrong. Neal has done independent studies with both professors; during one he helped create cowDuck, a free iPhone app that provides Wheaton students with information about the college.

LeBlanc, who is Neal’s academic advisor, called him one of the strongest programmers he’d encountered in 20 years. “He is a rock star,” LeBlanc declared. “And he is a complete gentleman.”

RIchard Neal ’15 works with the three-dimensional printer in the WHALE lab.

Neal’s programming skills have been a boon to Wheaton’s Lexomics Research Group, which uses English, math and computer science to analyze written material for unknown connections. Neal described the research group as “a perfect example of the way Wheaton is able to blend courses, ideas and research across disciplines.” In one case, a student used Lexomics to determine that parts of J.R.R. Tolkien’s works had actually been written by his son, Christopher.

Neal stayed on campus last summer to develop a new tool for Lexomics called Scrubber, which “scrubs” texts uploaded by researchers to remove extraneous characters, making them easier to analyze. “It’s very different from working on a program that I’d have for class,” he said, “both in that it’s much more labor-intensive and on a far longer scale, but also that I get the satisfaction of having something I built be used by scholars not just here, but in research around the nation.”

Then there’s the place Neal calls his “second home on campus”—the Wheaton Autonomous Learning Laboratory (WHALE), which opened as part of the renovated Science Center. The WHALE Lab offers students space and materials—including one of Neal’s favorite tools, a three-dimensional printer—to create whatever they can come up with.

“Richard is extremely thoughtful about his educational experience and improving that of other students,” said Armstrong, who oversees the lab. “He is committed to hands-on learning inside and outside of the classroom, and growing the community around ‘computational thinking’ at Wheaton.”

Neal said he isn’t sure what he wants to do after he graduates. He might become a high school teacher. He might go to graduate school and eventually become a professor. Or he might go into software engineering, preferably developing technology related to education. Right now he’s focused on next summer, when he’ll take part in The Foundry, a 12-week internship program in Cambridge that Microsoft has created for student developers. “It’s an amazing opportunity,” he said.

Whatever he chooses, Neal said his college experience is giving him the best of both worlds: the broad education provided by the liberal arts along with the resources and support that have helped his programming talent flourish. “Wheaton has really allowed me the autonomy to pursue these choices. I’m very grateful for that,” he said.

As Superstorm Sandy chased tens of thousands of New Yorkers from Lower Manhattan in October, Joseph Lee ’08 played a role in an altogether different human drama less than two miles from surging floodwaters.

At the Midtown offices of Reproductive Medicine Associates of New York (RMA), where Lee is research project manager, live incubated embryos awaiting uterine implantation suddenly were at risk when much of the island lost power. So were the childbearing hopes of as many as 10 women scheduled for fertility treatments that had to be performed within a 48-hour window. In the end, the power held, even as stress levels spiked.

“There was a lot of confusion and nerves were high. The phones were ringing off the hook,” says Lee, who was unable to return to his Queens home because of the storm. “We tried to answer everyone’s questions, and we were on 24/7 alert to make sure everything was OK.”

There was good reason for vigilance. Sixty blocks south, NYU Fertility Center not only lost power, but its basement flooded and generators failed, forcing frenzied staff to safeguard embryos in liquid nitrogen. No embryos were lost at either center, and RMA of New York was able to provide transportation and lodging to patients with scheduled appointments.

Bowing to the storm was never an option for Lee, a biology major who graduated cum laude from Wheaton. Resiliency and perseverance are traits he’s embodied since growing up in blue-collar Lewiston, Maine, where he lacked a father figure but found fulfillment marveling over the human condition, albeit through a scientific lens. A high school science class viewing of the 1997 film “Gattaca,” which considered the role of genetics on in vitro fertilization technology, particularly stoked his scientific ardor.

“I’ve always been intrigued by how humans work from a cellular basis,” Lee says. “We’re the most complex machines in the world, and trying to understand our mechanics is fascinating to me.”

He landed at RMA of New York in 2011, after spending two years as a research assistant at Boston Children’s Hospital, within Harvard Medical School’s stem cell research program. There he studied cancer biology in zebrafish. In 2007, Lee was a research intern at the Medical College of Georgia, where he worked in the vascular biology department.

Lee opted against enrolling in medical school and instead applied for the fertility center job because he felt he could have a more immediate impact on patients. “I wanted to get involved with what is called translational research, which goes right to the bedside of the patient,” he says. “I had a real hunger for this. We’re seeing how families are created, and it’s exciting to be a part of that. I’m a big family person, and being in a research field like this enhances that.”

Lee was to the point when he applied for the job. At 25, there was nothing to lose.

“I basically said to them, ‘I know I probably have the least amount of experience among applicants, but I’ll work for a low salary. Give me a chance and we’ll see what happens,’” he recalls. “They liked that. It’s a rarity to find someone who can be very vocal and confident within the science field, and be able to connect with people quickly. They gave me a chance and it’s worked out.”

Lee’s approach resonated with Dr. Alan Copperman, the clinic’s CEO and vice chairman of the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Science at Mount Sinai Medical Center. Lee has turned out to be a “key component in our scientific mission,” he says.

“It’s important that we continue to be inquisitive, that we innovate, that we critically analyze our own data and data from peer-reviewed journals, and that we effectively partner with industry and academia,” Copperman says.

“I like how Joe is not afraid to learn,” he adds. “And he can even sing and dance.” (Lee was hired shortly before the company’s holiday party.)

RMA is one of the nation’s largest in vitro fertilization centers. As part of its research team, Lee is working to develop a technique that will allow doctors to implant not just the best embryo, but a genetically “perfect” embryo, with the strongest odds of being carried to full term. Implanting a single embryo also cuts down on potential health risks to the mother inherent to multiple births.

Researchers around the country are racing to reach the same goal, a hypercompetitive contest punctuated by hope and frustration alike. Reasons for infertility vary, making a magic solution elusive.

In vitro research has exploded in the past five years, as researchers unravel the human genome, Lee says. Researchers are all on the hunt for telltale biomarkers—proteins and genes—that could tip off an embryo’s viability.

“Clinical research is the most exciting and most dreadful thing to be part of, exciting because of the possibility of finding something that can be advantageous to people,” Lee says. “But it’s frustrating when you work on a project for months and months and nothing comes out of it. That’s always a letdown. You have to try not to get distracted by that and go from there.”

“That’s very important in research,” Tong says. “If you’re stubborn and have a one-track mind, you might expect your results and discard the outcomes. If you accept different outcomes, you might make the best out of accidental discoveries.”

Lee calls Tong a father figure, someone who “would stay late and go over and over a concept until you understood it. He really respected people who showed ambition, and he listened and really cared about his students. He took me under his wing starting my freshman year.” Lee’s favorite classes at the college included anatomy, physiology and alternative medicine, all taught by Tong, who retired last June.

Tong’s first impressions of his budding protégé were distinct: “I thought he was from California. He looked like a valley boy, and he had this very relaxed, low-key demeanor.” Lee’s fashion sensibilities veer to the preppy, a look he’s cultivated with academic-like zeal.

“It’s New England prep with a twist of modern Englishman,” Lee says. “It’s very much a prep style, but a little more formfitting. The pants are narrow, the ties are narrow.” (Until recently, he maintained a men’s fashion blog at Preplee.com.)

There is a bit of California influence to Lee’s character. He’s surfed since he was 10, learning the sport with his cousin in, of all places, the mild waters of Old Orchard Beach, Maine. He’s since surfed six- to 10-foot waves in locales as varied as Australia’s east coast, and even in Peru (“the best surfing I ever had”), where he took part in a surf “voluntourism” program called WAVES for Development International. The nonprofit effort teams surfers with impoverished Peruvian youths, teaching them the sport while engaging them in community service and educational opportunities.

Lee’s assertiveness was hard to ignore that first year at Wheaton. He wanted to do lab work as a freshman so badly that he wouldn’t heed Tong’s suggestion that he wait a semester for a space to open.

“I said, ‘You know what? I’ll just show up and work alongside people and learn,’” Lee says with a chuckle. “Once you’re there, sometimes they’re stuck with you.”

Says Tong: “I finally decided he is aggressive in getting what he wants in a very subtle, relaxed way.” Tong’s teaching style worked well with Lee’s work habits. “I trust students,” Tong says. “Once they’ve learned the basic concepts and methods, then they’re on their own and can take their own approach.”

Lee’s research focused on angiogenesis in zebrafish—or the development of blood vessels from preexisting blood vessels. Although the research doesn’t have a direct bearing on his current fertility research, Lee credits Tong’s lab with giving him critical research instincts.

“If you don’t have experience going into the scientific world, things can be very confusing and people typically won’t hold your hand,” Lee says. “Wheaton gave me the skills to interact clearly and confidently with other researchers and scientists.

“The college also challenged me to engage with people who maybe don’t have the same mind-set, which is instrumental once you leave Wheaton,” he adds. “You’re not just going to work with people in science. The college geared me to be ambitious, and made me strive to be better. It made me focus on my goals, and it definitely matured me very quickly. When you talk to people who went to large universities, they don’t get it the way we get it.”

Recruited by several New England colleges to play basketball, he opted instead to bank his future on Norton because he liked the Wheaton ethos after visiting the campus, “and I heard the science program was good, so I just went for it.” But there was one problem. The basketball team wasn’t looking for a 5-foot-10-inch shooting guard.

“I talked to the coaches and they said I’d have to walk on,” Lee says. Not only did he make the varsity squad as a freshman, but he found a way to offset his height disadvantage. Lee took his game to the perimeter, proving to be one of the Lyons’ leading three-point throwers during his freshman year.

But academic rigors and his devotion to scientific research pushed basketball to the sidelines. (“I actually did away with talking to former teammates for the most part, and I didn’t go to games. It was a big part of my identity, so it was tough to give it up.”) Lee did, however, keep his shooting form by competing in intramural basketball.

The lab became his new proving ground. Lee and friend Kyle Judkins ’08, also a biology major from Maine, spent long hours in Tong’s lab, working on angiogenesis research. The pair used computer software to map blood flow in zebrafish, an effort that could lead to better care for a number of diseases. Their research was published in the Zebrafish scientific journal.

The relationship was competitive but healthy, says Judkins. The pair met at a new-student gathering at the Kennebunkport, Maine, home of a Wheaton alumna. Lee was dressed with his typical style sensibilities.

“He was wearing two polos, one on top of the other with both of the collars popped up,” Judkins says. “I think one of them was pink and the other was yellow. We made fun of him for four years straight. He dresses so well I actually thought he was an upperclassman when I first met him.”

The classmates roomed together in McIntire Hall their freshman year. They resolved to push the boundaries of academic and athletic growth, working out together and spending hours talking science. Outside the classroom, Lee took part in Wheaton-organized Habitat for Humanity projects in Florida and the Virgin Islands.

“Some people may see Joe as being cocky,” says Judkins, now a second-year student at the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine in Blacksburg, Va. “He’s just very, very sure of himself and that carries him further than most people would go. He’s not afraid to dip his toe into the cold waters. I think you might see his name pop up in the research world some day, or as a leader in general.”

Lee says it’s impossible to overstate the college’s influence, from small class sizes and a diverse student body, to its emphasis on writing, and non-major-related courses such as art history, which he credits for giving him a broader perspective on the world. “Every course I took at Wheaton formulated who I am now. They were tough, but I’m glad they were tough. Now that I’m out there, I can see the advantage. Wheaton opened up many doors on my view of the world.

“I always had the feeling at Wheaton that there was a great community supporting me and pushing me to be the best person I could be.”

Only a year ago, Elizabeth “Betsy” Meyer ’14 had never traveled far from the Boston suburb where she grew up, let alone flown on a plane or set out to sea for days on end.

What a difference a semester makes—particularly if the semester is spent enrolled in the Maritime Studies Program of Williams College and Mystic Seaport, which has been giving undergraduates a hands-on interdisciplinary experience learning about the sea since 1977.

Meyer, a 21-year-old biology major, spent last fall living in a historic house on the grounds of the seaport in Stonington, Conn., and studying in nontraditional classrooms like a sailing vessel along the coast of California. Quoting Woody Guthrie, Meyer said she “literally got to see America ‘from the redwood forests to the Gulf Stream waters,’ accompanied by fantastically intelligent people who related everything I saw to our academic studies.”

Betsy Meyer ’14 dons an immersion suit for a safety drill off the coast of California

For Meyer, the highlight was two onshore field seminars. In California, she spent time surveying the rockbound coast and the redwood forests, seeing an entirely different landscape from the one she grew up with in New England; in Louisiana, she found herself surrounded by unfamiliar southern accents and saw firsthand the impacts of Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil spill.

“It completely changed my understanding of the land and our connections to homelands,” she said.

Less of a highlight but still a powerful learning experience was the program’s weeklong sailing trip on a student vessel off the coast of California: Meyer was seasick for five straight days, but nevertheless had to wake up at 3 a.m. for her shifts on watch. At various other times, Williams-Mystic had her collecting marine bird pellets for an ecology study, writing papers, learning basic watercraft in small boats, and even learning to sing sea chanteys.

“It’s not an easy ride or a vacation. They keep you busy and expect a great deal from you,” Meyer said. “However, it is immensely rewarding, not in just the academic learning but in the bonds you share with fellow students and with the outstanding faculty and staff.”

Science isn’t Meyer’s only passion; her minor is studio art, and she enjoys drawing, photographing, knitting, crafting, reading and writing. “I need that creative outlet,” she said. She also loves to cook and is a writing intern in Wheaton’s Communications Office.

Meyer is one of 22 Wheaton students who’ve participated in Williams-Mystic since 2002. It’s one of a number of popular off-campus study programs the college offers in the U.S. and overseas, and it’s a favorite of Professor of Biology Scott Shumway, an ecologist, who is Meyer’s advisor.

Shumway described Meyer as an “outstanding” student, recalling how she’d sometimes send him photos of interesting trees she walked by on the Wheaton campus. “Williams-Mystic was an obvious choice for someone with her range of interests,” he said.

Meyer’s love for the outdoors started at a young age, when she began collecting shellfish and decided she wanted to become a marine biologist. As she got older, she took hikes with her father through the Blue Hills, and her focus widened to ecology. “I always had this idea that when you wanted to have fun, you went to nature and you looked at what was happening in the trees, in the air, on the ground,” she said.

Williams-Mystic wasn’t the last of Meyer’s excursions: in January she did a winter fellowship at the prestigious Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod, where she was paired with a research scientist. While she isn’t sure what her career path will be, she hopes to find a creative way of teaching and learning about the outdoors.

“Working with animals and studying biology in college for me is reaffirming that childhood awe,” Meyer said. “I want to remind other people of that feeling so that it’s easier to live mindfully in this delicate world.”

—Ted Nesi ’07

]]>http://wheatoncollege.edu/quarterly/2013/03/26/biology-major-sails-academic-adventure/feed/0Betsy Meyer ’14Betsy Meyer ’14 in front of the Golden Gate Bridge.Betsy Meyer 3Betsy Meyer ’14 dons an immersion suit for a safety drill off the coast of California570_Betsy Meyer 2Betsy Meyer ’14 with a family’s pet at Zam’s Swamp Tours in Kraemer, La.Creating learning opportunities from research grantshttp://wheatoncollege.edu/quarterly/2012/12/04/creating-learning-opportunities-research-grants/
http://wheatoncollege.edu/quarterly/2012/12/04/creating-learning-opportunities-research-grants/#respondWed, 05 Dec 2012 04:02:05 +0000http://wheatoncollege.edu/quarterly/?p=6920Professor Matthew Evans and four Wheaton students will spend the next three summers above the Arctic Circle seeking to better understand how the melting of Greenland’s glaciers will contribute to rising sea levels.

“The big question is how the Disko Bay system has responded to temperature changes in the recent past,” Professor Evans said. “The hope is that we can better predict how warming will impact the system in the future. It’s an important system, with one of the fastest-advancing and iceberg-producing glaciers on Earth.”

The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a $139,104 grant to Evans for the research effort, which will also take the Wheaton team to the National Ice Core Lab in Denver, Colo., to analyze the 100-meter ice cores they will collect in Greenland.

Evans is one of two Wheaton professors whose research plans have recently won substantial grants that include funding to hire current students as research assistants. Assistant Professor of Chemistry Thandi Buthelezi won a three-year $94,000 grant to support research that could aid in the development of nanotechnology tools useful in medicine, computing and other applications.

The role of faculty research in creating learning opportunities for Wheaton students is a tradition at the college. The experience of engaging in an intensive research project is uniquely powerful, faculty members say.

“Most of my research students develop strong analytical chemistry skills, along with developing an ability to think independently, and outside of their comfort zone,” said Evans, an assistant professor of chemistry and geology. “These are certainly skills necessary for successful graduate study, and they also will help in the workforce.”

In fact, a professor’s choices about the direction of her research are often influenced by the extent to which it allows for the involvement of undergraduates.

“I have been working on the spiropyran research project since fall 2008 when I started my position at Wheaton,” said Buthelezi, who noted that the research question captured her scholarly attention as well as offered opportunities for student involvement. “I became intrigued with the ability of spiropyrans to change from colorless to colored molecules in response to light or heat.”

It is basic research with potentially big potential for real-world applications. Spiropyrans could be used in a variety of ways from transition eye lenses to optical switches for molecular computers. First, however, researchers must understand how to control their inherent instability, which is where Professor Buthelezi’s team will apply its energies.

The Wheaton research team will conduct a range of experiments to examine the behavior of these molecules under varying conditions of light and heat. Their work will use a sophisticated instrument, the nanosecond pulsed laser/detection system, which the college acquired through a previous NSF grant that Buthelezi and her colleagues in the chemistry and physics departments received in 2011.

Her new grant will provide training in the use of the nanosecond laser/detection system and a variety of instruments, not only to research assistants but also to students enrolled in the college’s quantum chemistry course. The benefits, however, go beyond learning specific lab skills.

“I hope that my students will get experience in solving technological design problems,” Professor Buthelezi said. “They will be trained to think critically about designing experiments that will provide new data and shed light on the answers to an experimental question.”

]]>http://wheatoncollege.edu/quarterly/2012/12/04/creating-learning-opportunities-research-grants/feed/0Professor Matthew EvansGreenlandA minute with . . . Samuel Neill ’13http://wheatoncollege.edu/quarterly/2012/12/04/minute-samuel-neill-13/
http://wheatoncollege.edu/quarterly/2012/12/04/minute-samuel-neill-13/#respondTue, 04 Dec 2012 21:07:16 +0000http://wheatoncollege.edu/quarterly/?p=6932Biology major Samuel Neill ’13 is used to challenges: He’s a biology major, on the men’s swimming and diving team, a Wheaton Athletic Mentor, and a member of the Tri-Beta Biological Honors Society. But he really had his hands full in unexplored territory last summer working as a Balfour Scholar intern for the Musk Ox Development Corporation on a farm in Palmer, Alaska. Just how do you get a baby musk ox to drink milk from a bottle? Ask him; he knows.

Wild to mild: “The mission of the farm is to domesticate the musk ox and to promote qiviut (musk ox wool) production as a gentle and sustainable agricultural practice in the far north. Aside from the daily farm upkeep, animal husbandry and herding, every day was different. We had a saying at the Musk Ox Farm, ‘never a dull moment,’ and that was certainly true, whether it was changing the transmission on one of the trucks, sedating bulls for combing, or weaning calves, every day brought a new experience.”Bull 101: “Before coming to Alaska, I had only seen pictures and some short videos of musk ox. However, within minutes at the farm I found myself being led into the bullpen to meet our thousand-pound dominant bull, Goliath. This first encounter gave me a deep respect for the power and majesty of these Ice Age survivors.” Got milk—and bruises: “The biggest challenge was getting our calves to take the bottle from us after they were weaned. The process took many hours, lots of spilled milk, and a couple good bruises. However, it was very rewarding once these calves started to warm up to me and take the bottle. I can now say I know fifteen calves that like me very much.” Field of dreams: “One thing that attracted me to this internship, and also to Wheaton, was the depth of the experience. In many ways this experience mimics the education I am receiving at Wheaton. Studying here, I know the benefits of a well-rounded experience. The Musk Ox Farm offered a similar opportunity by allowing me to be involved in all aspects of the farm’s operation. As an intern, I became an integral part of the farm. My work and my opinions were valued and appreciated. This internship also allowed me to do what I love. If I could be outside everday working with animals for the rest of my life I would be very happy. In that way, it fits into my future plans. And, my coursework has helped me gain pertinent knowledge to pursue this dream.”

]]>http://wheatoncollege.edu/quarterly/2012/12/04/minute-samuel-neill-13/feed/0Samuel Neill ’13Protecting wildlife in Botswanahttp://wheatoncollege.edu/quarterly/2012/12/04/protecting-wildlife-botswana/
http://wheatoncollege.edu/quarterly/2012/12/04/protecting-wildlife-botswana/#respondTue, 04 Dec 2012 21:06:15 +0000http://wheatoncollege.edu/quarterly/?p=6934During the academic year, varsity volleyball team member Olanna Nissim ’13 is a defense specialist. But last summer, she spent time defending something else she loves on very different turf. She interned at the Cheetah Conservation Botswana (CCB), in South Africa.

The main goal of CCB is to preserve the nation’s cheetah population through scientific research, community outreach and education, and by working with rural communities to promote coexistence with Botswana’s diverse predator species. Nissim, an economics major, contributed to that effort through a variety of assignments and also engaged her interest in the cultural dynamics of economics.

She helped with fundraising by being in contact with NGOs and zoo officials in the United States, shadowed conservation project director Rebecca Klein, held camps to teach children predator awareness, worked at the education center, greeted visitors, and spent time with rehabilitated cheetahs, hyenas, monkeys and birds.

Nissim also helped present clinics to educate farmers about how to maintain their livestock without harming cheetahs. “The clinics try to show them how to live in harmony with predators,” she says. “We set up ‘critter cams,’ night-vision cameras, to show that the cheetahs were not the problem because cheetahs never really wander into farms. We also analyzed the bite marks on dead animals to decipher what type of animal attacked. Farmers have been shooting cheetahs because they don’t know for sure what has been killing their animals at night.”

The senior has always had an interest in the environment and wildlife. In fact, when she was in high school she started a wildlife awareness club dedicated to raising awareness and funding to protect the endangered cheetah species. So when she considered internships, she wanted to find a conservation effort in the nonprofit realm that focused on the ecology between wildlife and the environment.

“For me, economic development involves many factors and depends on the environment and societal structure of the area. This opportunity intrigued me because the conservation and coexistence of the cheetahs is a huge factor of Botswana’s economy,” says Nissim. “Wildlife is one of the country’s biggest sources of income from the tourism that it brings in, and the country has the largest populations of cheetahs left in the world.”

In just a few short years, chemistry major Jessica Restrepo ’13 has gained a great deal of experience working in the field of dentistry in both the United States and abroad.

Locally, she interned at Dental Partners of Boston in 2010, and at Boston Children’s Hospital cleft lip and palate program in the summers of 2010 and 2011. Abroad, she studied “Traditional Chinese Medicine” with now-retired professor Ed Tong in Kunming, China, in 2011.

Last summer she added to her list by working as a Davis International Fellow intern at the Himal Dental Hospital in Kathmandu, Nepal. There she had an opportunity to interact with dentists; observe dental procedures, including extractions, root canals and fillings; and to learn about the oral health of the Nepali community, all of which has helped to broaden her perspective on the field.

“My work at Himal Dental Hospital gave me a chance to understand another view on oral health and the common complications that may arise in developing countries,” she says.

Restrepo first became interested in health care, in particular dentistry, while a high school student at Health Careers Academy in Boston. At Wheaton, her interest has led her to take courses toward fulfilling pre-med requirements and, subsequently, to major in chemistry.

Jessica Restrepo ’13 stands in front of the dental clinic.

“After finishing a year of organic chemistry with Professor Christopher Kalberg, I fell in love with the concepts and the challenges chemistry entailed. After my final semester of my sophomore year, I knew I wanted a major that would constantly challenge me and improve my critical thinking, and I believe that chemistry has done that,” she says.

She learned of the Nepal opportunity through the nonprofit Experiential Learning International, which aims to connect volunteers to meaningful international experiences. “An alum, Kevin Hewitt ’12, who did a medical internship in Thailand, told me about Experiential Learning International, and I was inspired to take a similar approach,” she says. “My clinical knowledge, people skills, adaptability and cultural sensitivity improved during my time in Nepal, all of which has better prepared me for dental school and to handle any situation in the future as an orthodontist.”

]]>http://wheatoncollege.edu/quarterly/2012/12/04/chemistry-major-explores-dentistry/feed/0Jessica Restrepo ’13Jessica Restrepo ’13 is shown varied brushing techniques. Below, she stands in front of the dental clinic.Jessica Restrepo ’13Jessica Restrepo ’13 stands in front of the dental clinic.New York Times interviews professor about technology in the classroomhttp://wheatoncollege.edu/quarterly/2012/12/04/york-times-interviews-professor-technology-classroom/
http://wheatoncollege.edu/quarterly/2012/12/04/york-times-interviews-professor-technology-classroom/#respondTue, 04 Dec 2012 12:02:54 +0000http://wheatoncollege.edu/quarterly/?p=6942When it comes to digital humanities, Wheaton faculty lead the way. A number of professors are incorporating technology into the classroom and scholarship in novel ways, from the use of Twitter to extend and document class discussions on literature to data analysis of texts.

The New York Times picked up on the trend with an article, headlined “Computer Science for the Rest of Us,” that highlighted how information technology and computer programming is being taught to students who are not majoring in computer science.

The article included an interview with Professor of Computer Science Mark LeBlanc, who teaches the course “Computing for Poets,” in which students learn the Python programming language and use it to create software that analyzes large bodies of text.

The course is part of Wheaton’s Connections curriculum. Through the connection “Computing and Texts,” it is linked with courses on Anglo-Saxon literature and the works of the Old English scholar and Lord of the Rings author J.R.R. Tolkien.

Professor LeBlanc says teaching such courses together demonstrates the contributions that different disciplines make to studying an issue, and it serves a very pragmatic purpose as well: preparing students for professional careers.

Kathryn Mason ’14 works with Shep on overcoming his fear of the Hula-Hoop.

Can positive reinforcement lead to better results in animal behavior modification? Faculty and students are studying miniature horses to find out.

It all began with a casual conversation in the faculty suite in the Mars Center for Science and Technology.

Shari Ackerman-Morris, faculty associate in biology

Biology Faculty Associate Shari Ackerman-Morris was telling Associate Professor of Psychology Kathleen Morgan about the miniature horses that she was training with her daughter’s 4-H group. A longtime horse rider and licensed riding instructor, Ackerman-Morris was interested in applying all-positive reinforcement methods to train these pint-size horses which, at less than three feet tall, can still be very strong.

“It’s not uncommon for these little guys to really pull the kids around,” she observes. “I was interested in exploring other ways for kids and ponies to work together.”

Kathleen Morgan, associate professor of psychology

A five-member team of faculty members and students began researching those ways this summer. What they discover could have important implications far beyond the horse-training world. For pet owners and trainers of other animals, their success with all-positive reinforcement techniques could mean less stressful and better working partnerships between pets and owners, and better-trained pets in less time. And their current work could lead to a new applied behavior analysis research team at Wheaton, which would be yet another opportunity for students to get real-world experience related to their classroom coursework.

Both in the real world and in the world of training, there are different consequences of behavior. Some of those consequences are desirable (for example, getting dessert after cleaning your plate, or getting your roommate to stop nagging you after you pick up your clothes), and some are less so (such as getting a verbal reprimand after being rude to another, or losing the privilege of borrowing your friend’s car after you dent the fender).

From pit pony to show horse
Miniature horses were first introduced to the United States in the 19th century and used as draft horses in coal mines up until 1950. Known as “pit ponies,” they were ideally suited for hauling carts in the underground mining tunnels because of their small size and substantial strength.
Once pulled out of the mines, pit ponies started to be bred for a more refined look, evolving from a stocky, quarter-horse type to a thinner, Arab variety. In 1978, the American Miniature Horse Association was founded to encourage the breeding and exhibiting of miniature horses. Today the association registers nearly 185,000 minis and has more than 11,000 members. Competitive miniature-horse showing has become increasingly popular in recent years, with more than 250 association-sponsored shows annually occurring throughout the U.S. and Canada.

Any consequence that increases the likelihood of a behavior occurring again is called a reinforcement. The goal of giving you dessert after you cleaned your plate is to get plate-cleaning behavior to increase in frequency. This kind of reinforcement—adding something pleasant after the behavior you would like to increase occurs—is called positive reinforcement. A good and effective positive reinforcer can be anything that the person or animal being reinforced values—a word of praise, a pat on the head, a special treat.

But behavior can also be reinforced by removing, or subtracting, an undesirable thing—such as stopping one’s nagging once the person you are nagging does what you want. Because this way of reinforcing (or increasing) a behavior involves taking something away, it is referred to as negative reinforcement. The undesirable stimulus used to increase a behavior is often subtle, such as gentle social or physical pressure (i.e., stepping close to a horse until it steps back), but is nonetheless effective in increasing the frequency of a behavior.

The horse world relies on both positive and negative reinforcement to aid in training. Part of the rationale behind using negative reinforcement in horse training is the sheer size and strength of the animal compared to the human. In addition, a growing field that calls itself “natural horsemanship” argues that most species-typical horse social interactions involve negative reinforcement.

“You have some particularly tasty grass that I would like. I step toward you—you step away. I get the grass. No one gets hurt,” Morgan says. In fact, one natural horsemanship trainer that Ackerman-Morris consulted at the annual Equine Affaire in Springfield, Mass., told her that because horses were by nature “flight animals” (dealing with perceived danger by running away), negative reinforcement was the only technique that would really make sense to them.

Research and training tools: a journal, Hula-Hoop, videorecorder and cones.

Ackerman-Morris and Morgan were puzzled over this line of reasoning, however. They observed that birds were also flight animals but were not typically trained using negative reinforcement. And in the dog training world, many handlers have moved completely away from the use of negative reinforcement techniques to using only positive reinforcement.

So Morgan and Ackerman-Morris began wondering: Is it true that positive reinforcement is not as effective as negative reinforcement for equines? What if they could design a scientific study that showed it was possible to train miniature horses using all-positive reinforcement? Could this method of training work to obtain the behaviors that miniature-horse trainers want from their animals, and would it be less stressful for everyone—trainer and trainee—than using other methods?

An alert Shep checks out the Hula-Hoop.

Stress in animals is a topic that Morgan has studied for the better part of her professional career. “Often we just think of the big events that cause stress in animals’ lives—like a visit from the vet. But plenty of routine events in the lives of horses are probably also somewhat stressful,” Morgan says, “such as traveling in a trailer or going to a horse show. Training is probably another routine experience that can be stressful.” Morgan’s research has tended to focus on quantifying stress in animals and finding ways to reduce it.

Is positive reinforcement less stressful than negative reinforcement when used to change behavior? On the surface, it might seem as if getting a carrot for doing something the human would like you to do would be less stressful than being made to feel slightly uncomfortable by a human pressing gently on your shoulder and then stopping when you move away.

But what if the horse begins to “worry” about whether it will be getting that carrot or not? What if it only takes a few trials in order for the horse to “figure out” that moving away makes the human stop pressing its shoulder, and thus never experiences that pressure again? By scientifically comparing the effects of positive and negative reinforcement training on miniature horses, Morgan and Ackerman-Morris hope to determine how each of these training methods affects an animal, and also to document the extent to which positive reinforcement can be used in lieu of negative reinforcement in the world of miniature horse training.

Finding the right horses (and student researchers)

Alexandra Lund ’13, psychobiology major

Kathryn Mason ’14, psychology major

Around the same time the idea for the study was taking shape, one of Morgan’s psychology students, Kathryn “Katy” Mason ’14, was working at Winslow Farm Animal Sanctuary in Norton, Mass. All of the animals at the sanctuary, including a small group of miniature horses, live “at liberty,” meaning they are rarely haltered or handled, and many have limited experience with training. This unique background made the Winslow minis ideal candidates for all-positive reinforcement training, since they weren’t predisposed to act a certain way around trainers. After speaking with Morgan about the study, Mason came onboard as a student researcher.

The study’s control group is at Whispering Pines, a local farm in Foxboro, Mass., that shows miniature horses. The miniature horses at this farm are trained using a combination of positive and traditional negative reinforcement techniques. At both the farm and the sanctuary, the animals are well loved and well cared for. Thus, the primary differences between the two are in the horses’ experiences with training, which makes them ideal for comparison in this study.

To round out the research team, Morgan recruited psychobiology major Alexandra Lund ’13, a co-captain of the Wheaton Equestrian Team who’d previously worked with Morgan on a giraffe training study. In addition, psychobiology major Jessica Beckstrom ’13, the other co-captain of the Equestrian Team and an experienced bird trainer at Worcester Ecotarium, also volunteered. Morgan, Lund, Ackerman-Morris, Mason and Beckstrom began working with the two groups of miniature horses in June, with funding from a Mars student-faculty research grant.

A tale of two farms

Forest and Shep are two of the resident miniature horses at the animal sanctuary. A study in contrast, Forest was born at the sanctuary and is an outgoing mini with a penchant for biting. Shep is a “rescued” mini who was abused in her former home and is now skittish and wary of humans as a consequence.

When student researcher Mason began doing groundwork training with both horses in the spring, she encountered significant resistance. “I could barely put my hand out before Forest would try to bite it,” she says, “and I couldn’t get within ten feet of Shep.”

Using a clicker training technique that she learned as a dog trainer, Mason would wait until the horses performed a desired behavior (in Forest’s case, not biting her hand), then mark the behavior with the clicker and treat the horses to a handful of Cheerios.

“The clicker works like a bridge,” explains Mason. “It connects the good behavior to the Cheerio reward, creating an association in the animal’s mind.” So far, the technique has proven highly effective with the sanctuary minis. A few weeks into clicker training, Forest’s biting had dramatically decreased, and Shep had become more willing to approach humans.

Now a few months into the process, Forest is beginning to learn several behaviors typically used in miniature horse show “trail” competitions. His tricks include standing quietly by a human’s side, “heeling” beside a walking human, backing up, jumping over small items, and turning 360 degrees while keeping his back legs inside a Hula-Hoop. All of this is done with Forest “at liberty;” i.e., without requiring him to wear a halter or lead line.

Shep has come a long way, too. She’s learned to stand squarely in front of Mason and no longer takes off at the sight of the Hula-Hoop—major progress for a horse that used to bolt at almost anything, including the sound of the clicker.

A few towns over at Whispering Pines, the training for an upcoming show is in progress. The 4-H kids working with the minis at this farm include Ackerman-Morris’s daughter Jessica and the farm owner’s children, Jyla and Chelsea Sulham. The girls have been working with the Whispering Pines minis for just over 18 months; prior to that, the horses had no show training but were regularly handled. These minis have been trained to jump, complete a trail course, and most recently, to pull a cart.

Nine-year-old Jyla’s mini horse Pumpkin is striving to be the “boss mare” at the farm, and Pumpkin can also be bossy with research team members. For instance, Pumpkin has a tendency to continually bump the researchers with her nose, looking for loose Cheerios. But it is clear that Pumpkin and Jyla have a special bond. Pumpkin will follow Jyla anywhere, even over jumps.

Bookie, shown by Ackerman-Morris’s daughter Jessica, is another of the control farm minis competing with Pumpkin for head-mare status. Like Pumpkin, Bookie has attitude, which makes her a good show horse, but also makes training her a challenge. Like Pumpkin and Jyla, though, Jessica and Bookie have a special bond, and Bookie will perform tasks for Jess that she won’t do for others.

“It is clear that these minis have a good working relationship with the child who is their primary trainer,” Morgan says. “We just want to know if we can make that relationship even better.”

The kids training the control minis use lead lines and halters to handle their animals and conventional training that includes both positive and negative reinforcement. Research team members observe these training sessions and also conduct some of their own, comparing the two techniques in terms of how many training sessions it takes to get the desired behavior, and how both humans and animals respond to each technique.

Because those responses can be tough to catch in real time, Morgan and her fellow researchers film their training sessions so they can analyze them later. “We really want to see the sequence of events—what the humans do and what the horses do in response,” says Morgan. “Then we can compare in more detail the behavioral effects of using positive versus negative reinforcement.”

The science of stress

To compare the impact of the two training techniques on the animals, the team is using several measures of stress. One measure is the amount of cortisol (a primary stress hormone) that ends up in the animals’ saliva. Using cotton swabs, the researchers collect regular samples from the horses as they are being trained and compare those cortisol levels to baseline samples collected before training begins.

Another way the researchers are measuring stress is by monitoring the miniature horses’ heart rates during training with specially designed equine heart-rate monitors. Together with the cortisol results and analysis of behavioral stress indicators (such as head tossing and tightening of the mouth), the team hypothesizes that positive reinforcement training will produce reduced physiological and behavioral measures of stress compared to the combined training, and improve the minis’ overall willingness to work for a trainer.

Strategy plus serendipity

Given instinctual equine behavior, certain maneuvers common in the “trail” class for miniature horses have proven particularly tough to train using only positive reinforcement.

“The natural way that horses interact with each other and with humans is by moving away from an approach, not toward it,” says Morgan. “There is one behavior that requires the pony to step crablike along a rail, sideways. It’s called a side pass, and looks like it sounds—the pony crosses its legs under its body as it steps to the side rather than forward or back. Typically, this behavior is obtained by gently pressing a horse’s shoulder and hip until it steps to the side. The behavior is negatively reinforced by removing the physical pressure once the pony takes the step that the trainer wants. Eventually, the trainer can fade this to nothing more than holding out a hand and the horse steps away.

“We’ve been working on the side pass with the sanctuary minis by trying to train them to actually move their shoulders and hips toward our hand—in other words, to move to us rather than away from us. That’s not something they naturally do. At the control farm, we can take advantage of the minis’ natural tendency to move away from an approaching hand, but at the sanctuary, we have to figure out how to do it without using physical pressure or negative reinforcement.”

Despite the constant strategizing, re-strategizing and analyzing that all five researchers do as part of the training process, major breakthroughs sometimes happen serendipitously. Take, for example, the way they cracked the code for getting the miniature horses at the sanctuary to back up. Mason was working with Forest when she rolled her hand back to avoid getting bitten. In response, Forest stepped backward. Then Beckstrom found a YouTube video of an animal trainer in California showing a similar way to positively reinforce backing up in horses. The team has since refined the original hand-rolling technique and has used it to successfully train several of the other miniature horses to walk backward without the use of social or physical pressure.

Getting the word out

The study plan as it stands now is to continue working with both groups of horses into the fall and for Morgan, Ackerman-Morris, Lund, Mason and Beckstrom to submit an abstract of their initial findings to the New England Psychological Association, with the hopes of presenting (and drumming up interest) at the association’s annual meeting in October. From there, the team will develop a comprehensive report of findings for submission to the Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science, Applied Animal Behaviour Science, or Animal Welfare.

Exactly when the miniature-horse training will end is still to be determined. For her own part, Morgan would like to continue working with the Winslow Farm horses until one or more of them is able to complete a traditional miniature horse trail competition course—an accomplishment that could, as colleague Ackerman-Morris points out, take some time.

“The timetable depends on how strict we’re going to be,” says Ackerman-Morris. “Will it be a course that the horses have worked on and know well? Or will we teach them individual elements and then put them together in new and unique ways? We haven’t decided yet what our test will be.”

One thing that Ackerman-Morris and Morgan do know, however, is that they’d like to continue this type of research at Wheaton indefinitely. “I want to develop a more-or-less permanent applied behavior analysis research team that would work both on and off campus to study how these training techniques can improve animal behavior and well-being,” says Morgan.

The development of such a team would provide steady opportunities for students interested in animal behavior to gain real-world research experience—experience that both Lund and Mason recognize as priceless.

“I’ve done smaller research projects in class but never anything to the degree of this project,” says Mason. “I plan to continue on to graduate school after Wheaton, and I have no doubt that the skills and knowledge I’ve gained through this research will have a positive impact on my future success.”

The nonhierarchical nature of research at Wheaton is also key, explains Lund. “The college emphasizes a small class size, which allows you to form great relationships with both your professors and fellow students. This research project is an extension of that. Morgan and Ackerman-Morris have definitely made me, Jessica and Katy feel like equal partners throughout the process.”

“There are many effective methods of animal training out there—what we hope to show is the value and impact of one method not presently in common use among horse trainers,” says Beckstrom. “Who knows? Maybe we can start a bit of a revolution among horse handlers.”

“There is in that course a large section on the evolution and anatomy of dinosaurs, leading all the way to the evolution of modern birds,” says Alloy-Relihan. “After a particular lecture detailing the feathered dinosaurs found in Liaoning, China, I went home to my own parakeets and stared at them for an hour because I saw what they really were for the first time.

“There were two small dinosaurs in a cage in my house. I was looking into the eyes of the creatures I’d been so fascinated by my whole life.”

The experience inspired the psychobiology major. She took the ornithology course taught by Professor Kricher, served as a teaching assistant in his class and pursued an independent study on bird anatomy. Before she graduated, Kricher suggested she apply for an internship with the Raptor Trust, based in central New Jersey.

“The Raptor Trust takes in all sick and injured birds brought to it, not just raptors, so my main tasks involve feeding and caring for the hundreds of baby birds that have come in this summer,” says Alloy-Relihan, who also finds time to continue comparative studies on avian and therapod dinosaur bones.

The Conger Family Internship Fund established by Trustee Nancy Pearlstine Conger ’67 provides the stipend support for Alloy-Relihan’s work at the Trust. The support is key, she says. “The internship award and stipend help me by making sure that I can cover my own living expenses without putting financial pressure on the Raptor Trust itself.“

Alloy-Relihan says the experience working at the Trust is invaluable.

“I am the sort of person who is hungry for knowledge,” she says. “This experience has shown me that I can keep learning the sort of information I crave outside of a college setting. It has also definitely reinforced my desire to make my career one based around birds.”

Photos by Pete Byron

]]>http://wheatoncollege.edu/quarterly/2012/08/16/flying-high/feed/0Grace Relihan ’12 with a pigeonExamining research ethicshttp://wheatoncollege.edu/quarterly/2012/08/16/examining-research-ethics/
http://wheatoncollege.edu/quarterly/2012/08/16/examining-research-ethics/#respondThu, 16 Aug 2012 16:01:07 +0000http://wheatoncollege.edu/quarterly/?p=6567Assistant Professor of Philosophy Teresa Celada has a bachelor’s degree in biological science, and a master’s degree and doctorate in philosophy. The cross-disciplinary combination provides her with an insightful perspective on the ethics of research involving human participants, which is the focus of her scholarship. Last January, she shared her expertise with the members of the National Institute of Public Health and the Ministry of Health in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. She worked with them to organize and conduct a two-and-a-half-day symposium on the responsible conduct of research. It was the first activity of a yearlong project aimed at developing a sustainable and culturally appropriate program in ethical research for Cambodia. We recently asked her about her work.

What are you studying?

My primary research interests regard the ethical use of biotechnology to enhance human traits and the ethical conduct both of research involving humans and international collaborative research. Currently, I am working on a philosophical paper about the nature and assessment of risk in research involving humans.

What led to your interest in this field?

I began working in research ethics as a graduate student. When one of my advisors introduced me to the AIDS International Training and Research Program (AITRP) team, I jumped at the chance to work with them. I wanted to do work in applied ethics because I wanted my philosophical work to have real-world application. Research ethics in particular has the added advantage of drawing on my undergraduate training in biological science. By exploring research ethics, I indulge my passions for both science and philosophy. You can see why Wheaton, with its Connections curriculum, and I are so well suited for each other. Of course, also, it is very gratifying to work on an important health problem such as HIV/AIDS, and to work with people from all over the world. The AITRP, which began in 1988 and is sponsored by the Fogarty International Center (FIC) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), aims to train scientists and health professionals from low- and middle-income countries to perform HIV-related research in their home country in order to build the country’s own capacity for the prevention, care and treatment of HIV/AIDS. The Fogarty Center sponsors/funds AITRP at universities across the U.S. Fellows accepted into the program receive multidisciplinary training in research ethics and biomedical and social science research related to HIV/AIDS. I provide research ethics training to the AITRP fellows at Brown University and work with them on the ethical design of their research.

Tell us about your work in Cambodia.

The Brown AITRP team has worked with Cambodian health professionals and researchers for more than ten years. In recent discussions, Cambodian advisors to the Ministry of Health (MOH) expressed a need for training researchers and ethics committee members in the Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR). The Cambodian ethics committee, the National Ethics Committee for Health Research (NECHR), was established in 2004 by order of the Cambodian prime minister, who also appoints its members from the MOH. By national regulation, the NECHR reviews all research involving human participants in Cambodia. Research activity increases in volume and type each year in Cambodia, and hence, so does the need for increasingly sophisticated RCR training. In response to the request, the Cambodian and Brown teams together, with a team from UCLA, proposed to develop a program in RCR responsive to the needs and culture of Cambodia. This collaborative project among other things aims to develop a course in RCR that will be offered each year at the Cambodian School of Public Health, a research ethics website for researchers, and a listserv. The project was launched at a symposium in Phnom Penh in January.

How does your international work fit into your course offerings at Wheaton?

It enables me to provide a global dimension to some of my classes. In ethics, I can draw on my work and international experience to inform the discussion of ethical relativism and shared moral values. In medical ethics, we spend three to four weeks discussing international collaborative clinical trials and health research and the ethics codes governing them.

Why is it important to examine the conduct of research in this country and elsewhere?

It is important that scientific research be conducted responsibly for both scientific and moral reasons. Historical evidence shows that scientific misconduct has occurred. Scientists rely on the research of other scientists; to do their own work, they need to be able to trust the scientific reports of their colleagues. Scientific misconduct is costly and impedes scientific progress. Educating scientists in the responsible conduct of research serves to promote the production of scientific knowledge. Historical evidence shows also that unethical research involving human participants has been conducted all over the world and research participants have suffered for it. At this time, the progress of medical science depends on research with human participants. Protecting those participants in research serves the public trust and shows respect and concern for human welfare. If the public can trust that research will be conducted ethically, then they will participate in research.

What are the most important lessons you hope your students learn in your courses?

I want my students to see that what they often experience as “problems” are best thought of as puzzles to be solved; problems are not obstacles but indications that something is to be learned, an insight is to be had. I want my students to appreciate that some answers/truths are complicated and so not to rush to judgment or inappropriately simplify matters. I want them to exercise the principle of charity, that is, to give the most rational interpretation to the statements and arguments of others, including their critics. I want students to understand that mastery requires hard work. I also want them to develop and practice analytical and critical-thinking skills, and to ask good questions.

Sedra Davis ’14 and Claudia D’Adamo ’13 are working with doctors, scientists and other students to research computational approaches to using vital-signs data to improve patient care.

In the United States, traumatic brain injury is a leading cause of injury-related deaths. Sedra Davis ’14 and Claudia D’Adamo ’13, along with Assistant Professor of Computer Science Tom Armstrong, are hoping to change that. Through the use of technology, they are working to improve the chances for recovery in critically injured patients.

The three are examining vital-signs data to find common patterns across patients. These patterns will be used to alert health care providers about the need for medical intervention and to predict patient outcomes.

“Computing is changing the way that other disciplines approach asking and answering questions,” says Armstrong. “Opportunities like this provide experiences that will be useful regardless of the path Sedra and Claudia choose: graduate education, professional education, or industry.”

D’Adamo, a psychology and computer science double major, is helping to develop algorithms that will provide continuous patient assessment. “This is similar to a doctor never leaving a bedside,” she says. Using these algorithms and data from patients, “we’ll be able to predict and prevent unfavorable outcomes in future patients.”

Davis, a studio arts major and public health minor, is learning to think about computational approaches to big data problems. An interest in medicine led her to the project. “I thought this was a great behind-the-scenes learning experience that would build the skills medical schools seek.”

The study, which began last fall and will continue through the summer, is funded by a grant from the Computing Research Association’s Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research and the Coalition to Diversify Computing. Davis and D’Adamo are collaborating with students and faculty from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and medical staff from the State of Maryland’s Shock Trauma Center.

“This research will contribute to innovations in medical informatics that will make processes more efficient and effective,” says Davis, a Posse Scholar. For example, the algorithms will help predict the need for highly invasive procedures, like emergency decompressive craniectomies, says Armstrong. These procedures, which remove part of the skull to allow room for a swelling brain, are risky. But they are highly effective in reducing pressure in the skull, which can restrict blood flow and lead to death.

Both students say they are learning a great deal as they work on this project.

D’Adamo, who is interested in human-computer interaction, says she is gaining valuable information about medical informatics. “It’s introducing me to a new type of data to analyze and a more collaborative type of research environment,” she says. “I wouldn’t have received the research experience I’ve had here anywhere else.”

And, Davis adds: “With assistance from Claudia and Tom, I am now learning computer languages and concepts that are the core of technological innovations. This project has shown me that computer science can be really multidisciplinary. It can be applied to all fields of work. Being an art major, I find it intriguing that I can use computing platforms to visualize data results in a comprehensive and dynamic way.”

]]>http://wheatoncollege.edu/quarterly/2012/05/17/examining-ways-improve-health-care/feed/0DAdamo-DavisSedra Davis ’14 and Claudia D’Adamo ’13 are working with doctors, scientists and other students to research computational approaches to using vital-signs data to improve patient care.National Science Foundation grant supports physics and chemistry researchhttp://wheatoncollege.edu/quarterly/2012/05/17/national-science-foundation-grant-supports-physics-chemistry-research/
http://wheatoncollege.edu/quarterly/2012/05/17/national-science-foundation-grant-supports-physics-chemistry-research/#respondThu, 17 May 2012 20:02:46 +0000http://wheatoncollege.edu/quarterly/?p=6028

Wheaton has won a National Science Foundation grant to acquire a cutting-edge laser system that will advance the research of three Wheaton scientists and their students.

The $255,865 grant from NSF’s Major Research Instrumentation Program will finance the purchase of a tunable laser and auxiliary equipment to support the work of chemistry professor Thandi Buthelezi and physics professors John Collins and Xuesheng Chen. The instrumentation will foster Wheaton’s interdisciplinary curriculum and promote interactions among science departments.

A tunable laser can emit at a wide variety of colors, or wavelengths, and the ability to control and vary the wavelength makes this instrument a powerful research tool.

For instance, Collins will use the laser system to investigate new phosphor materials that could improve the efficiency and environmental friendliness of lighting. (A phosphor is a substance that exhibits luminescence when hit with certain light wavelengths.) Standard incandescent lamps are only 10 percent efficient, and fluorescent lights, only about 30 percent efficient. Fluorescent bulbs use ultraviolet light that shoots through a mercury gas and hits the phosphor, which re-emits white light. Now that new lighting technologies avoid the use of toxic mercury, there is a need for alternative light sources and phosphors. The challenge is to develop phosphors that can, for example, absorb a blue laser beam and emit a warm, white light at high efficiency.

“When I’m studying a new material, we don’t know exactly where [on the spectrum] it’s going to absorb and where it’s not,” Collins explains, “so it’s necessary to have a tunable light source. Also, this is a so-called pulsed laser, so it gives off light in a very short time, and I can study not only what comes out of the laser, but also how long it takes to come out. That gives information on the processes that are going on inside the material, so I can understand the physics.”

Buthelezi will use the new instrument in her investigations of host/guest interactions of photochromic molecules, which change color reversibly when exposed to light or heat. These molecules will include spiropyrans that could potentially be used for the development of molecular-based nanothermometers, which can measure temperatures in materials as small as a single living cell or a dewdrop. Her work also has potential applications to technologies such as photo-imaging, noninvasive drug delivery and optical switching.

Chen conducts optical studies on transparent ceramic materials, which are used in laser technology in place of more expensive crystals. For several years, Chen has collaborated with industry leader Boston Applied Technologies on the research and development of these materials. With the new laser system, she will further this research, focusing on infrared-to-visible upconversion light emission, on finding effective excitation wavelengths to produce efficient light output, and on studying the physical mechanisms that are involved.

Wheaton students are engaged in every step of these research projects. Students will learn how to use this sophisticated laser instrument, acquiring skills that will give them an advantage in graduate school and in the workplace.

The laser instrument will be central to three existing lab courses—“Quantum Chemistry,” “Modern Physics II” and “Experimental Physics.” Collins and Buthelezi will also develop and co-teach a new course that crosses disciplines.

“We’re getting together to offer a course about the workings of biological materials from a physicist’s and a chemist’s point of view,” says Collins. “There are new tools coming out to study nanoparticles, they’re using lasers to figure out protein folding, and they’re developing subcellular surgery” that’s performed with a laser microbeam or “optical scissors.”

The walls between scientific disciplines are breaking down, he says, and tomorrow’s scientists will need expertise in many overlapping fields to effectively investigate new scientific questions.

In his 39 years at Wheaton, Professor of Biology Edmund Tong has developed innovative teaching programs, trained numerous students in his lab, and received impressive grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Science Foundation (NSF) and others.

This spring, he plans to retire. As he leaves, his legacy of inspired research continues through an impressive list of biology alumnae/i who sing his praises. During Commencement/Reunion Weekend, he will receive the newly established Heather J. Corbett ’86 Faculty/Staff Unsung Hero Award, which is based on nominations and is presented to a faculty or staff member who has made a significant contribution to community, career or volunteer service to Wheaton.

A favored professor, he has a reputation for being a mentor who is as interested in his students’ well-being as he is in their academic growth. “There were so many times that I went to his office in search of advice because I knew that he always had the most thoughtful insights,” says Kyle Glass ’11, who did his senior thesis with Tong.

“One of his best attributes was the way he guided and pushed us to do as much as we could. He always had the utmost confidence in us,” says April Greene-Colozzi ’09, a senior research technician at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. She began her work with Tong as a sophomore and, before she graduated, authored an academic paper with her professor.

Tong began his career at Wheaton in 1973 after earning his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “I was highly impressed with the college when I came for my interview,” he says.

At Wheaton, the bulk of his research has been focused on angiogenesis, the growth of new blood vessels, which has significant importance in the treatment of cancer and heart disease and in wound healing. He began this work in 1984 after receiving a pilot grant from the NIH. Over the years, Tong has trained close to 100 students in his angiogenesis research lab, nicknaming his student researchers “the A Team.”

In the mid-’90s, Tong started to investigate the effect of hydroxyoctadecadienoic acids on blood vessel growth. Tumors need blood to grow, and without angiogenesis, they will die, says Tong. The preliminary data from this research helped Tong obtain an NIH Academic Research Enhancement Award grant from the National Cancer Institute.

His innovative teaching style includes using the television show “ER” to teach physiology. “Students studied one patient case each week from the show,” he says. He also started a service-learning program at Sturdy Memorial Hospital in Attleboro, Mass.,where students shadow doctors in the emergency room and other departments.

Of his many accomplishments, Tong is especially pleased with the Staircase Plan, a math and science curriculum he developed that combines existing First-Year Seminars and junior-year internships with a new feature, second-year short lab projects. The plan culminates with a student-faculty research project. “The mission behind the plan is to better prepare students for graduate and professional programs,” he says.

The plan received two large equipment grants from the Sherman/Fairchild and Kresge Foundations.

Tong is also proud to have a connection to Connections. His 2000 NSF proposal, “The Connections Plan,” examined ways to bridge the gap between math and science and the other disciplines, and was a starting point for Wheaton’s signature curriculum, which links courses across academic areas.

What will he miss most after his retirement? “My students, especially everyone who worked in my lab,” he says.

Though he will be retiring, Tong will not be leaving the Wheaton community. He plans to continue teaching his “Traditional Chinese Medicine” and Chinese arts and culture courses with Wheaton students in the summer. “And I plan to sit in on some classes, especially art history and studio art,” says Tong, an accomplished painter.

It doesn’t take a math major to know that the odds of ending up on the big screen in this scenario aren’t the greatest.

But Trisha Carr ’08—a math major—went for it anyway. And it paid off.

She received one of the five main roles in the full-length independent feature film Brilliant Mistakes, which is scheduled to be released this summer. Although she has performed on stage for many years, this was her first try at a film role. She plays Erin Penney, a college-age girl whose sister, Gabby, gets into a horrible accident. The Salisbury Film production centers on Gabby’s fiancé, Marcus, and how he and Gabby’s family react to and cope with the accident.

Carr’s pleased she got the role, but not completely surprised. She always knew majoring in math could lead to a wide variety of opportunities.

“From my experience, employers in nearly all fields value math majors because a degree in mathematics is essentially a degree in logical, critical and creative thinking. Math is problem solving at its core,” she says. “I love finding solutions, making sense of things around me. To me, math is fun and beautiful. It’s everywhere around us: money, nature, architecture, music, art and theater.”

By day, Carr works full time as a market research analyst conducting research for clients to determine “the story” from hundreds of pages of data so that she can deliver that story in a clear, concise way. By night, she does similar work—getting the story out—on stage as an actress and a choreographer.

“At Wheaton I was able to balance my intellectual interests and my love for performing. I’m still doing that,” says Carr, who has a minor in dance.

She was a member of the Wheaton College Dance Company for four years, co-captain her senior year. And she is still involved with the company, returning to choreograph once or twice each year.

In fact, it was through her experience with the dance company and the encouragement of Professor Cheryl Mrozowski that she first discovered her passion for choreography, Carr says. “Without that experience I’m not sure it would be a part of my life today.”

In her home state of Connecticut, she regularly performs and choreographs. In the past two years she has performed in 10 productions, including Annie,42nd Street, Carousel, The Producers, Oliver!, KissMe, Kate, Funny Girl and two productions of A Chorus Line. Last winter she was chosen to choreograph a production of Rent at the Warner Theatre, a 1,800-seat venue in Connecticut.

“Although they may seem disparate, I would say there are definite similarities between math and performing, and especially with dance and choreography,” she says. “Math and dance both deal with ideas such as spatial awareness, patterns, counting and symmetry. In dance, you constantly have to learn patterns and reverse them quickly, and in choreography you have to be able to creatively explore configurations in your mind, thinking about their aesthetic potential. All of these skills are also used in math. Math, acting and choreography all balance analysis and intuition.

“It’s very important to me to do what I love and to maintain a balance in my life. Performing and choreographing are two passions of mine. They don’t need to be my primary job to make me happy, as long as I get to participate in them.”

When Joseph Lavoine ’06 graduated from Wheaton with a degree in computer science, the iPhone was still a year away from release and the iPad was just a gleam in Steve Jobs’s eye. Six years later, he’s using his education to create original games for Apple’s best-selling devices.

Lavoine has founded his own gaming company, Done Right Studios, which put out his first release in October 2011. The 99-cent puzzle game, “Origami Adventure,” challenges players to quickly choose between different colored animals to rack up points. “It’s a game about timing coordination—a bit like the old classic ‘Tetris,’” Lavoine explains. “Players choose between different origami animals—from cats to whales—that move at different speeds. The object of the game (to rack up points) is to get multiple animals of the same color in a row. But since the animals move at different speeds, players need to be crafty about which one they pick to make sure they keep having the same color hit the other end of the screen in sequence.”

The game has gotten five-star reviews on the Mac App Store website and is on sale in eight languages. It’s clear from reading the comments that children as well as adults have found “Origami Adventure” challenging and addicting.

For more information
Lavoine can be reached at admin@donerightstudios.com.

Lavoine, a Massachusetts native, started playing video games as a kindergartner when his parents bought him an Nintendo and the original “Super Mario Bros.” But he always loved books, as well.

“The first thing I ever wanted to grow up and become was an author,” Lavoine says. “But one day it struck me that I should combine my two favorite things, and write and create whole games, not just stories.”

That made Wheaton a natural fit. He was able to indulge both his interests by loading up on computer science and English classes.

Lavoine’s capstone was a yearlong independent study project he did as a senior. He learned the Java computer language and created his own multiplayer online gladiator game.

“Joe poured himself into his project work and soon emerged as a student leader among his computer science peers,” recalls Professor Mark LeBlanc, who taught Lavoine’s First-Year Seminar. He describes Lavoine as “someone who leverages his technical skills with broader thinking from the liberal arts and, in his case, with a true entrepreneurial spirit.”

After graduating, Lavoine impressed would-be employers with his senior-year project, and found jobs working on a number of major franchises, including Sim City and Dungeons and Dragons. But when the Boston startup he was working for downsized in 2010, he quickly decided to strike out on his own.

Creating “Origami Adventure” turned Lavoine into a true small businessman. He designed and engineered the game himself, sometimes working 60 to 70 hours a week, but also had to find outside contractors to contribute artwork, music, sound effects and translations.

“Even though I often worked from morning into the night, when you wholly own something, all the work somehow seems different,” he says. “At the same time, working for yourself also requires a lot of discipline.”

With his first game under his belt, he is now moving forward with a new project (“a combination of Lord of the Rings and FarmVille”) that he hopes to release for the iPad later this year. He’s looking to attract other entrepreneurially minded Wheaton students or graduates to work with him on art design and marketing the game.

Photo collage by David Laferriere, images from Done Right Studios

]]>http://wheatoncollege.edu/quarterly/2012/05/17/playing-work/feed/0570-LavoineWomen in mathhttp://wheatoncollege.edu/quarterly/2012/03/23/women-math/
http://wheatoncollege.edu/quarterly/2012/03/23/women-math/#respondSat, 24 Mar 2012 03:05:22 +0000http://wheatoncollege.edu/quarterly/?p=5044A program to promote women pursuing careers in the male-dominated field of mathematics that was founded by Assistant Professor of Mathematics Rachelle DeCoste has won a grant from the National Security Agency (NSA).

The $12,000 award from the NSA will help fund the Career Mentoring Workshop, which is scheduled to take place at the end of June. The three-day gathering prepares women who are Ph.D. candidates in math for their job search and creates a network of mentors and peers.

“I am excited that we are able to continue the mentoring after taking last summer off due to lack of funding,” Professor DeCoste said. “I’m also particularly excited to host the workshop in our new spaces in the Mars Center for Science and Technology!”

DeCoste, who joined the Wheaton faculty in 2008 after teaching at the United States Military Academy at West Point, was inspired to create the workshop because of her own experiences. She conducted the first mentoring workshop at West Point last August.

“After I finished my Ph.D.,” she said, “I would run into women I knew from graduate school or other math programs I had been affiliated with as they were finishing their Ph.D.s, and they were on the job market. They would have the usual stress that goes with finding a job and felt like they had no one they could talk to. So I would share my experience honestly, and that included discussing all the doubts I had. A couple of them told me afterward that these honest, open discussions really helped them.”

Twelve to 15 participants are invited to each summer’s workshop. Five junior faculty members from various academic institutions will mentor participants throughout the workshop. The mentors are women who have recently finished their own Ph.D.s and who now work in academia. These women will share their experiences of finishing their degrees and navigating the job search. Additional senior mathematicians will be invited to work with the participants as well.

Throughout the years, the program’s funding has been provided by the MAA/Tensor Foundation Program, Wheaton College, the United States Military Academy, the EDGE Program, and the Summer Math Program at Carleton College.

]]>http://wheatoncollege.edu/quarterly/2012/03/23/women-math/feed/0Assistant Professor of Mathematics Rachelle DeCosteAlum’s career takes flight at avian centerhttp://wheatoncollege.edu/quarterly/2012/03/23/alums-career-takes-flight-avian-center/
http://wheatoncollege.edu/quarterly/2012/03/23/alums-career-takes-flight-avian-center/#respondFri, 23 Mar 2012 10:02:06 +0000http://wheatoncollege.edu/quarterly/?p=5031When Ben Montgomery ’04 was at Wheaton, he had not pinpointed his exact career plans, but he knew what he wanted.

“I wanted to do something that felt like it mattered and something a little thrilling. I knew I would spend the majority of my life at ‘work,’ so I didn’t want it to just be about a paycheck; I would die of boredom,” said Montgomery, who majored in biology with a concentration in ecology and environmental science.

He has found both purpose and excitement at the Raptor Trust, one of the largest and most respected wild-bird rehabilitation and conservation centers in the United States, where he is the property manager and an educator. As an educator, he conducts programs on raptors and avian conservation for schools, clubs, scouts and the thousands of visitors who come to the New Jersey–based facility each year. As the property manager he builds and maintains 81 aviaries totaling over 300,000 cubic feet of flight space, and monitors all non-medical equipment, supplies and tools as well as the food used for the raptors. He also assists senior medical personnel in providing care for all birds. Currently, there are about 60 permanently disabled hawks, eagles and owls of 20 different species at the trust, in addition to the roughly 3,500 individual birds that receive care each year.

Montgomery’s experience at the trust dates back to long before he was hired for a paid, full-time position in 2006. He had worked there for three summers while at Wheaton. (Wheaton Trustee Nancy Pearlstine Conger ’67 and her husband, Bill, a trustee at the Raptor Trust, have recently established a dedicated internship there for Wheaton students through the Filene Center.)

“I was drawn to the nonprofit sector because I want to work in an industry that focuses on a mission. I have loved nature my entire life. Now I get to teach others, and kids in particular, about respecting nature. And every day here is like being on the set for one of those discovery nature shows.”

In fact, Montgomery has been featured on TV and in several newspaper articles over the years, including in a story about him diving into a reservoir on a 30-degree December day a couple of years ago to rescue a lead-poisoned bald eagle that would have drowned.

Recently, he was in the news worldwide after there was a break-in at the trust and a federally protected screech owl was stolen. He did media interviews to try to get the word out, hoping that someone would help with the return of the bird. The media blitz worked. “The bird was returned by someone who ultimately wanted to do the right thing,” he said.

He credits Wheaton professors John Kricher (biology) and Jeffrey Timm (religion) for helping him discover his career path. “John Kricher helped me understand the ‘art’ of nature in ecology, and he always encouraged students to think creatively that way. Jeffrey Timm let me take a senior seminar in a subject that wasn’t my major or minor. I had exposure to information, ideas and experiences in his class that had a profound impact on me and continue to influence my life today.”

He recently began working on a second master’s degree in business. “With my other master’s degree in education, my science degree from Wheaton, and my enthusiasm for being involved, I would love to continue to remain connected to my community and advocate for wildlife as I grow in my current position. I would also like to eventually branch out and help other nonprofit businesses, and maybe someday even start my own.”

After many years of planning, the reality is even more spectacular than imagined. The walls are made not only of brick and glass, but also of hope and vision. The see-through research labs and classrooms not only showcase the collaborations between students and faculty and expand the college’s commitment to the sciences and interdisciplinary scholarship, but also reflect the support of alums who stay close to their alma mater. The study and gathering spots not only provide practical places to work, but also foster the sense of community that sets Wheaton apart. And the design details not only create a beautiful architectural landmark, but also underscore the college’s dedication to efficiency and environmental sustainability in remarkable ways.

Overall, the largest capital project in Wheaton’s history has created (as Professor Tommy Ratliff calls it) “a new center of energy on campus,” and it is breathtaking—outside in, inside out.

The Mars Center for Science and Technology has been designed to achieve a prestigious LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) silver certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. The sustainable design and construction features include: